Julie Isphording Responds

Wow - I was personally contacted by a local hero! Julie Isphording is a former Olympic runner and member of the first ever Women’s Olympic Marathon Team. She used to host an inspiring and empowering local radio show of which I was an avid listener until the radio station changed formats. Now she is a local champion of health. You can visit her websites at http://www.thehealthystuff.com and http://www.lindnercenterofhope.org where she is now a consultant.

In my last post, I noted an email that I sent to the Thanksgiving Day Race. Roman's Grandpa said that the shirt design kind of looked like a swastika... I didn't even make the connection until he said that, so I recommended a new shirt design for next year. Imagine my excitement when Julie Isphording PERSONALLY contacted me! See her response below:

Hi E.
So sorry about that. No one else said anything so I'm not too worried.
And there's a new t-shirt design every year. And this was our top
selling t-shirt.

You're recommendation will happen.

j

Julie Isphording
Consultant, External Affairs
The Lindner Center of Hope
www.lindnercenterofhope.org
Author, Get Healthy Get Happy
www.thehealthystuff.com

I'm so pleased that she personally took the time to respond to my email. Her book Get Healthy, Get Happy is on my Christmas list.

Happy Post Thanksgiving!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and were able to give thanks for the blessings in your lives. I had a great day!

I signed up to walk the Cincinnati Thanksgiving Day Race a little over a month ago. I needed some inspiration to get myself to the gym. And there's nothing like burning off the Thanksgiving Day meal beforehand! I walked three miles every other day, with longer walks on the weekends to train.

The race started at 9 and I left home at 7:40 - enough time to get downtown, park and have time to stretch and maybe find a port-o-john. Apparently, 11,490 left home at the same time, because there was no parking to be found. At 8:50, I called Roman, crying, because I was so stressed out about the situation. At 8:55, I found a (probably illegal) spot and darted to the start line. I took the steps up to Second Street two at a time. What I saw was 11,490 people lined up to start their race. It was 13 minutes into the race before I crossed the start line. Ah well, it gave me some time to get my ipod ready to go. I made a playlist just for the race. When I finally got to the starting line, I hit play, and the Black Eyed Peas kicked off my run (yes, I couldn't help but run even though I trained to walk - the excitement was too much!)

Let's Get It Started, in here... And the base keep runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and...

It was a fantastic day for the race. The sun was shining, and I had The Cult, Kaiser Chiefs, Foo Fighters and Devo getting me through the first mile. Here are some of the views from the run:











The Verdin Bell Museum, where Roman and I got married.

(Big Show, Royal Crescent Mob)











me!

(Mas y Mas, Los Lobos)














Welcome to Kentucky!

(Viva Las Vegas, Elvis Presley)













The water stop was in the shade, which led to an icy ground. I saw several people wipe out.

(American Idiot, Green Day)











View of Cincinnati

(Cleveland Rocks, Presidents of the United States)








My shadow at mile 5.

(Hella Good, No Doubt)











The finish line! MY official time was 1:23:12

(Respect, Aretha Franklin)












After the race I found my car (it took a while), drove home, got cleaned up and we were off to Roman's grandma & Grandpa's house for turkey. We arrived at 1:05 - five minutes after the official lunch start time. But the rolls weren't done, so we were actually early. We settled at the table with his family. Roman's grandpa sat right across from me. He was really interested in my race and liked my shirt a lot. However, today, I had to write this letter to the race organizers:

I had a wonderful time at the race yesterday. The weather was perfect, and I was happy to burn off the calories before dinner! I proudly wore my race shirt to my husband's grandparents house for dinner. My 85-year-old Grandpa-in-law said he liked my shirt. The colors were nice, he said. Imagine my shock when he then said, "You know what that shirt kind of reminds me of?" I put my fork down, because as a WWII veteran, he's always got something interesting to say. "A swastika!"

I recommend a different shirt design for next year. :)

Cleocatra Powell

It's been well over a month now, and I'm just ready to talk about this. I wanted to let you all know that we lost our baby, Cleocatra on October 7. She had developed asthma about two years ago. Roman and I worked very closely with our vet to make sure she had whatever medications we could find for her. I even learned how to give shots. Sadly, she had a very severe asthma attack on the morning of the 7th. It's been an extremely hard time for both Roman and me.

Cleo adoped us in 1995, right after my kitty, Burt passed away at 19. She had so many unique traits. When she was a kitten, she didn't stop meowing as she ate! It sounded like, "rowl-rowl-reowl" as she chewed. She bonded with me in her early years when I didn't have a job. She followed me wherever I went through our apartment, and then through our house.

In 1998, Roman and I both had jobs out of the house and felt bad about leaving Cleo alone, so Allie adoped us! It took Cleo a while to get used to her aunt (we have biological proof that Cleo is, indeed, Allie's niece), but they soon became almost inseparable. Cleo taught Allie the ropes of drinking out of the faucet and setting up residence in empty boxes. Cleo acted like she didn't want another cat around, but when we thought we weren't around, we'd see her giving Allie a bath. They grew to love each other, and we'd often find them cuddled together when we'd come home from work.

Cleo was a very neat cat. Odd she would have picked me in that regard. Every time after we fed her, and she finished eating, she would scrape around the plate to make sure no scraps were left. She did the every time she ate. When we'd leave her with the vet when we were on vacation, they always commented about how she'd clean up her food area!

In 1998, Roman and I moved into our house. We had a lot of friends and family helping us move everything, and my cousin Ben took care of Cleo and Allie. Of course, he was a teenager and didn't want to move heavy things, so he and the girls camped out in the upstairs bathroom - effectively allowing them to slowly adapt without encountering the chaos of the move.

A few years later, Roman and I found ourselves awakening to strange noises in the middle of the night. It sounded like a cat in a lot of pain. A little background - our laundry area is in our basement. Because Cleo was an indoor kitty, she especially liked the (literally) full basement with all its places to hide. To our delight, the late-night noises turned out to be Cleo. What we discovered is that she would "kill" our dirty socks in the laundry pile and then bring them all the way upstairs to us as gifts! Those of you unfamiliar with cat behavior - outdoor cats typically kill rodents, rabbits (as in Burt on Easter), etc and bring them to you as "gifts." It's totally out of love. There were mornings where we'd wake up and find 10 socks around the bed, on the stairs, in the kitchen - she loved us a lot!

We were content with our two kitties until 2003, when Indy found us. It was July 4th, he was a scrawny kitten in our flowerbed, and since it was a holiday, no Vet's offices were open. We had to keep him overnight, and he kinda grew on us! Cleo was more accepting, and Allie was the more apprehensive of the girls. But oh, how he loved his girlfriends. He especially liked Cleo. Ever since Indy joined our family, he's been all kitten. He wanted to play with Cleo all the time, and by "play," I mean tackle. She hated it. We felt awful about the screeches, and we did everything we could to let them both know they were loved, despite the age and temperament difference.

Time heals all wounds, I hear. Allie and Indy had a definite adjustment period. For weeks, they would look for her, sniffing around the area where she had her last asthma attack. I couldn't even change the bedsheets for the longest time - I knew it held Cleo's smell and would comfort them to some degree. It's taken Roman and me this long to not cry every single day. The love and support we received from friends and family (and even friends' family) was so overwhelming. To know we have so many people in our lives who understand how tragic a loss this was for us made us feel blessed. We don't have kids, and we really do love our cats as part of our family. They each have unique personalities, just as we humans do. The people who supported us through this are truly special to us. We thank each and every one of you.

We will miss Cleo so much. Roman and I discussed so many memorial options, and eventually decided upon cremation. It was me that couldn't part with her. I wanted an urn with a photo, and Roman picked out the exact one. She's with us now, on a shelf upstairs. I still haven't picked out the perfect photo, but I did give her my red Nike running socks. Apparently they were her favorites, because they have the most teeth holes!

We thank all of you for your kind thoughts and understanding. She was our first baby, and we will miss her so much.

And We're Off!